This site is an sibling of the wonderful and addictive Pollbludger site. While Pollbludger is focussed on the Australian political arena, William Bowe has been very supportive of his community in maintaining a series of blog posts dealing with events in the US primaries and now the general election. However, with some interesting political activity on the local horizon, US related threads will no longer be maintained. This site has been established on the principal of community continuance and for better or worse we really need to get though to election night, and quite probably the handover of power in the weeks that follow. Where things go from there is anyone’s guess.

As to policy and procedure I will be encouraging regular contributors to take up contributor and administrative roles to support the normal functioning of the site and expect my own contribution to be limited to some technical stuff enabling this community. If all goes to plan, I’d hope for half-a-dozen regular contributors and the normal vibrant, spicy, and compelling commentary.

Honestly – how can you not go past the latest post titled “Dirty Fuckin’ Hippies…For Real”

“Hippies? Really, John McCain, is that the best you can do? Hippies? Is this the 1976 election? The McCain campaign’s latest ad, titled, seriously, “Love,” opens with scenes of crazy kids gettin’ their freak on, maybe even on McCain’s lawn….”

Was wondering about discloser of Ip’s, email addies etc, Normally its a given that they wont be disclosed, but I noticed that this site seems to have a distinct (no ESJ) feel about it and was wondering what would happen if/when he shows up and it got me thinking. ( Catrina, I wasn’t trying to piss you off, but seems I did anyway, that wasn’t my intention)

Thanks for bringing the discussion here, and just for reference I wasn’t pissed-off or anything. I was simply being frank with you. Nobody here is paid, nobody is under contract, and there is no formal framework though which administrators can provide such an assurance without subjecting themselves to potential liability.

I certainly will not be taking on any legal liability without the appropriate legal, administrative and technical framework that would allow me ensure such a commitment. I would also advise other potential administrators to follow my lead.

Catrina, you’ve probably answered this somewhere but I couldn’t find it (well, I’m lazy and haven’t really looked) but does this site cost you money to run?… The reason I ask is I recently made this site my home page, which means the server will get LOTS of page request from me. If your paying for this then it will be costing you a lot if I leave politic.osm.net as HP.

A lot of effort has gone into ensuring that the site costs us nothing to run. The server and associated pipes are managed by the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (which is a little ironic considering that NC is Republican leaning territory). But more importantly – we don’t need donations – and that also means that we have eliminated a potential conflict of interest when it comes to editorial policy.